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User Physical Location This document defines a protocol for communicating information about the current physical location of a Jabber entity. NOTE WELL: The protocol defined herein has been folded into XEP-0080. &LEGALNOTICE; 0112 Obsolete Standards Track Standards XMPP Core XEP-0060 XEP-0080 physloc &stpeter; 1.0 2004-10-12 psa Per a vote of the Jabber Council, advanced status to Draft. 0.8 2004-10-12 psa Added internationalization considerations. 0.7 2004-10-10 psa Added <postalcode/> element; removed <url/> element (unnecessary given the existence of jabber:x:oob); defined mapping to vCard. 0.6 2004-10-05 psa Defined mappings to Wireless Village and SIMPLE. 0.5 2004-05-11 psa Changed root element, namespace, and shortname to physloc to prevent conflict with XEP-0033. 0.4 2004-04-25 psa Corrected several errors; added reference to XEP-0033. 0.3 2004-02-19 psa Revived document upon modifications to XEP-0080; changed root element, namespace, and shortname to 'address'. 0.2 2003-08-21 psa Removed 'current' from title; changed shortname to 'location'; changed 'freetext' to 'text'; made several other small fixes. 0.1 2003-08-20 psa Initial version.

NOTE WELL: The protocol defined herein has been folded into &xep0080;.

This document defines an extension mechanism for capturing "extended presence" information about a user's current physical location. The information structures defined herein are intended to provide a format for describing a location or address that may change fairly frequently (e.g., one's location on a campus or in a large building) in situations where the user or application does not possess, or does not wish to communicate, detailed latitude/longitude data of the type defined in XEP-0080.

Information about the user's location is provided by the user and propagated on the network by the user's client. The information is structured by means of an <physloc/> element that is qualified by the 'http://jabber.org/protocol/physloc' namespace. The location information itself is provided as the XML character data of the following children of the <physloc/> element:

ElementDescriptionExample
<country/>The nation where the user is locatedUSA
<region/>An administrative region of the nation, such as a state or provinceNew York
<locality/>A locality within the administrative region, such as a town or cityNew York City
<area/>A named area such as a campus or neighborhoodCentral Park
<street/>A thoroughfare within the locality, or a crossing of two thoroughfares34th and Broadway
<building/>A specific building on a street or in an areaThe Empire State Building
<floor/>A particular floor in a building102
<room/>A particular room in a buildingObservatory
<postalcode/>A code used for postal delivery10027
<text/>A catch-all element that captures any other information about the user's locationNorthwest corner of the lobby

The <physloc/> information SHOULD be communicated by means of &xep0060;. Because physical location information is not pure presence information and can change independently of the user's availability, it SHOULD NOT be provided as an extension to &PRESENCE;.

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The location information is then delivered to all subscribers:

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As mentioned in XEP-0060, the stanza containing the event notification or payload MAY also include 'replyto' data (as specified by the &xep0033; protocol) to provide an explicit association between the published data and the user:

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There are many XML data formats for physical location or address information. It is beyond the scope of this document to provide a mapping from the extension defined herein to every such format. However, it would be valuable to provide a mapping from the Jabber/XMPP format to the formats used in other presence or extended presence protocols. The two main protocols of interest are:

  1. The Wireless Village (now "IMPS") specifications for mobile instant messaging; these specifications define a presence attribute for address information as encapsulated in the IMPS "Address" element The Wireless Village Initiative: Presence Attributes v1.1 (WV-029); for further information, visit <http://www.openmobilealliance.org/tech/affiliates/wv/wvindex.html>..

  2. The SIP-based SIMPLE specifications; in particular, the IETF's GEOPRIV Working Group has defined an extension to the IETF's &pidf; for location information, as specified in &rfc4119; (also known as "PIDF-LO").

The following table also maps the format defined herein to the vCard XML format specified in &xep0054;.

Jabber/XMPP Wireless Village / IMPS SIMPLE (PIDF-LO) vCard XML
<country/> <Country/> <country/> <CTRY/> As noted in XEP-0054, the XML vCard format defined in draft-dawson-vcard-xml-dtd-01 specified a <COUNTRY/> element rather than a <CTRY/> element; refer to XEP-0054 for details.
<region/> -- <A1/> and/or <A2/> <REGION/>
<locality/> <City/> <A3/> <LOCALITY/>
<area/> <NamedArea/> <A4/> and/or <A5/> --
<street/> <Street/> The IMPS specification also enables one to define an intersection (e.g., "Broadway and 34th Street") as the combination of a <Crossing1/> element (e.g., "Broadway") and a <Crossing2/> element (e.g., "34th Street"). To map from IMPS to Jabber, an application SHOULD map such a combination to one Jabber/XMPP <street/> element. <A6/> The PIDF-LO format provides information elements for much more granular control over a traditional street address; in PIDF-LO the <A6/> element is the street name only, and further information is provided in distinct elements for a leading street direction (e.g., "N"), trailing street suffix (e.g., "SW"), street suffix (e.g., "Avenue"), house number (e.g., "909"), and house number suffix (e.g., "1/2"). To map from PIDF-LO to Jabber, an application SHOULD construct the complete street address from the PIDF-LO elements (<A6/>, <PRD/>, <POD/>, <STS/>, <HNO/>, and <HNS/>) and map the result to one Jabber/XMPP <street/> element. <STREET/>
<building/> <Building/> <LMK/> --
<floor/> -- <FLR/> --
<room/> -- -- --
<postalcode/> -- <PC/> <PCODE/>
<text/> <FreeTextLocation/> <LOC/> <EXTADR/>
-- <Accuracy/> This element provides accuracy in meters. The geolocation protocol defined in XEP-0080 specifies such an element for Jabber/XMPP, which SHOULD be used when mapping from IMPS to Jabber. -- --
-- -- <NAM/> This element provides a name for the location, e.g., a certain store in a building. This SHOULD be mapped to the Jabber/XMPP <text/> element. --

Because the character data contained in most <physloc/> child elements is intended to be readable by humans, the <physloc/> element SHOULD possess an 'xml:lang' attribute specifying the natural language of such character data.

It is imperative to control access to location information, at least by default. Imagine that a stalker got unauthorized access to this information, with enough accuracy and timeliness to be able to find the target person. This scenario could lead to loss of life, so please take access control checks seriously. A user SHOULD take care in approving subscribers and in characterizing his or her current physical location.

This document requires no interaction with &IANA;.

The ®ISTRAR; includes 'http://jabber.org/protocol/physloc' in its registry of protocol namespaces, but the namespace is deprecated.

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